To what deeds of cruelty will the flames of love not inspire mankind? Here is a mother who dares not love her child, the fruit of her body. Holding the unhappy boy to her snowy breast and wishing to give him suck, she conceives for him, though she is his mother, a shameful passion. Cupid, thou goest too far; put down thy cruel quiver. Consult Venus; mayhap she feels like pangs.
IX. (XLV.)
The Porcupine.
I had heard the strange tale, Stymphalus, that the birds that haunted thy marshes let fall from them arrows of death in their flight, and for long I could not bring myself to believe this story of iron feathers. But here is proof: the porcupine who is surely related to those birds of Hercules is their warrant.
His long snout is like that of a swine. Stiff bristles like horns stand up from his forehead. Red and fierce are his fiery eyes. Under his bristly back are short legs like those of a small dog. Small as this animal is, nevertheless Nature has seen fit to dower him with a wonderful means of defence. All over the body grows a threatening thicket: a harvest of brightly coloured spears bristles up ready
[65] Perdiccas, the young hunter, is said to have fallen in love with his mother Polycaste (or Polycarpe)=the Earth (see Mythogr. Lat. ii. 130). Claudian inverts the story. For details see Höfer in Roscher’s lexicon, art. “Perdix,” col. 1953.
alba subit radix, alternantesque colorum
tincta vices, spatiis internigrantibus, exit
in solidae speciem pinnae, tenuataque furtim 15